Culture & Cafecito

Nathalia Montoya Casanova

The Culture & Cafecito Podcast hosted by Nathalia Montoya Casanova, Corporate Wellness Coach & Consultant, invites conversations with people, leaders, and experts (of all industries) who have expertise and curiosity for sharing, talking about and exploring what culture means and how we can re-define it as individuals, as leaders, as a community, and as a team. The podcast specifically focuses on cultivating conversations to support leaders in thinking about new ways to communicate, collaborate, and connect more effectively and how we can authentically build cultures of wellness.

  1. Feb 27

    Episode 22: Culture & Navigating Holistic Health and Finding Care You Can Trust

    In this thoughtful conversation, we speak with Dr. Anjali Viswanathan, a Board-Certified Internal Medicine physician who bridges traditional medicine and holistic wellness. She shares her journey from corporate medicine to founding Aveska Wellness, where she integrates evidence-based care with a whole-person approach that considers mental, physical, emotional, and cultural factors impacting health. We explore what holistic health truly means, the ethical responsibilities of wellness providers, and how to identify credible, evidence-based experts in a crowded and often confusing industry. Dr. Anjali also discusses hormone balance, metabolic optimization, and sustainable weight loss, highlighting the dangers of quick-fix culture and the importance of partnership, trust, and informed decision-making in achieving lasting health. Dr. Anjali Viswanathan – Bio & Contact Dr. Anjali Viswanathan is a Board-Certified Internal Medicine physician who is passionate about merging traditional medicine and holistic wellness. Her work focuses on metabolic health, hormone optimization, and sustainable weight loss through an integrated, evidence-based approach. After two decades in corporate medicine, she felt called to realign with the deeper purpose of healing and has rediscovered joy in helping patients achieve meaningful, lasting wellness and longevity. Website: https://www.aveskawellness.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aveska_wellness/

    1h 7m
  2. Jan 21

    Episode 21: Culture & Trauma Recovery: Embodiment, Ethics and Care

    In this deeply connected conversation, we speak with Dr. Stephanie Arel about trauma recovery through an integrated body-mind-spirit lens and the ethical responsibilities that accompany this work. Dr. Arel shares her journey at the intersection of theology, psychology, spirituality, and meaning-making, and how both her academic research and lived experience inform her approach to trauma care and recovery. She describes her work in her trauma-focused therapeutic and consultative practice, highlighting how movement and practices like Pilates and somatics help reveal trauma held in the body and support trauma recovery. The conversation explores how trauma is defined and experienced, including distinctions between “big T” trauma and cumulative “little t” trauma, particularly among immigrants and those in vulnerable environments.   Finally, Dr. Arel emphasizes embodiment, nervous system regulation, and spirituality as essential to trauma recovery, while highlighting how practitioners can offer safe, ethical support through self-reflection, awareness of bias, and trust-building. She underscores the importance of cultivating a supportive community after trauma, moving slowly, and continually tuning into the body as a guide for safety within oneself and in relationship with others.   Authors and books referenced:Ann Ulanov Peter Levine What Happened to You by Oprah Winfrey Dr. Arel's Bio & Contact: Dr. Stephanie Arel currently teaches at Fordham University. Her research focuses on pastoral practices around trauma, shame, and empathy. Her most recent projects address acts of commemoration in memorial museums and how those who mediate human memory and suffering offer a model for what it means to care for the other. Her book Bearing Witness: The Wounds of Mass Trauma at Memorial Museums (Fortress 2023) is an ethnographic exploration of workers at memorial museums around the globe considering their possible interpretation as public, pastoral theologians. She has conducted workshops in Bosnia Herzegovina, Israel, Germany and the US on the psychological costs of confronting traumatic content in the form of material and people. Arel is also author of Affect Theory, Shame and Christian Formation (Palgrave Macmillan 2016) and co-editor of Post-Traumatic Public Theology (Palgrave Macmillan 2016), Ideology and Utopia in the Twenty-First Century: The Surplus of Meaning in Ricoeur's Dialectical Concept (Lexington 2018) and Probing Human Dignity: Exploring Thresholds from an Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Springer 2023). She is a somatic experiencing practitioner and holds a certificate in treatment for trauma in the clinical setting from the New York Institute in Psychoanalysis and has been teaching in trauma and theology for 12 years. You can find her at instagram, substack and one her website below: vanagrowth@gmail.com https://www.vanagrowth.com/ https://www.instagram.com/vanagrowth/ https://www.instagram.com/stephanie_arel/ https://stephaniearel.substack.com/ https://www.youtube.com/@StephanieArel

    1h 1m
  3. 02/29/2024

    Episode 19: Culture & Energy Healing with Dr. Jason Yuan

    On this episode of the Culture & Cafecito Podcast, I talk with Dr. Jason Yuan about his experience in medicine and how his culture has impacted his work and what he does to support his patients. We discuss what pranic healing is and how pranic healing otherwise known as energy healing can support people's mental health. We also delve deeper into how we can apply pranic healing to healing business culture and supporting employees in the workplace and we also talk about the difference between western and eastern medicine and how both can contribute to our healing. Dr. Yuan is a licensed Naturopathic Physician and Acupuncturist practicing in Connecticut/New York/New Jersey area. His passion for holistic health emerged from his own personal experience of chronic illness for over 20 years. He saw the gaps in the traditional healthcare model and pursued alternative approaches such as Traditional Chinese Medicine and Naturopathic Medicine. Dr. Yuan strives to personalize his treatments for each patient’s specific needs through an integrated approach. Combined with his honesty, motivation, and compassion, Dr. Yuan emphasizes that he strives to be the model doctor that everyone would like to have. He graduated from the University of Bridgeport in 2021 with a Doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine and a Masters in Acupuncture. He graduated with honors from NJIT-Rutgers with a bachelor’s in Biology in 2017. Dr. Yuan is also a certified Pranic Healing instructor, Craniosacral therapist, and Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy practitioner. You can connect with Dr. Jason Yuan on instagram at @drjasonyuan, email him at drjasonyuan@gmail.com, learn more about his services and work on his website https://www.drjasonyuan.com/ and tune into his podcast The Pranic Healing Podcast pranichealingpodcast.buzzsprout.com

    35 min

About

The Culture & Cafecito Podcast hosted by Nathalia Montoya Casanova, Corporate Wellness Coach & Consultant, invites conversations with people, leaders, and experts (of all industries) who have expertise and curiosity for sharing, talking about and exploring what culture means and how we can re-define it as individuals, as leaders, as a community, and as a team. The podcast specifically focuses on cultivating conversations to support leaders in thinking about new ways to communicate, collaborate, and connect more effectively and how we can authentically build cultures of wellness.